Rise of Empires
by Ebanu8
Summary: Throughout the history of Humanity, great empires have risen only to fall into obscurity, and mankind would once again fight amongst itself for supremacy. That was to change, for humanity is driven by a desire to not only survive, but to thrive. Empires would rise again, this time to endure until the last days of man itself.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Just something I'm doing in my spare time, so don't expect frequent updates.**

Humanity. A species that is united yet divided. A species more adaptable and flexible than many; such traits allowed Humanity, as a species, to evolve from the constraints of mother nature to become a ruler of the galaxy.

But before the time of the Humans' ascension to the stars, there was no unity, no era of enduring peace, only an era of darkness and endless war.

From the grim darkness of the middle ages would arise great empires, four of them the greatest of all; the Irish Empire, the Russian Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Ethiopian Empire.

It began in the year of our Lord 1460. The Eastern Roman Empire was but a dying shadow of its former glory, the light of Rome doomed to be permanently extinguished by Ottoman Expansion. The Pope, frightened by the thought of the Islamic Turks encroaching on the Vatican City itself - the holiest of places sacred to the Catholic church, called for another Crusade to drive back the invaders, but as nearly the whole of Europe was embroiled in continuous war, only the Kingdom of Hungary was able to answer the call.

In Britannia, the soon-to-be capital of the Irish Empire, an Irish King by the name of Cathal O'neil - ruler of the province of Ulster - sat on his throne, brooding with hatred at the thought of his homeland conquered by the English Kingdom under King Henry III of the House of Wancester.

Henry III was infamous to many, even his own subjects, for he tried to raise an army to conquer France even after being repulsed by the Valois Dynasty numerous times, suffering terrible losses to both his military and treasury.

To fuel Cathal's hatred further, he continually conscripted Irish men - his kinsmen, not the King's - to fight his wars for him, often using threats of brutality to get his way.

The Irish King then decided Henry III would rule Ireland no longer; sending orders for his army - numbering not more than two thousand soldiers - to be strengthened, he ordered a call to arms, ready to unite the people of Ireland under one banner and drive back the English, or die trying.

It took at least four weeks to muster an additional three thousand soldiers for the war effort, but King Cathal's army was soon ready for war, the war that would be recorded as the Irish War of Unification by many historians.

Before Cathal's army set out, he had previously sent orders for shipyards to construct an additional three barques and two transport cogs, strengthening his navy to five barques and three transports to prepare for the possibility of a naval battle that could end his war of unification as soon as it began.

He also sent diplomats to both Scotland and France, knowing that both were not friends of England and eager to see Henry III's power knocked down a few pegs, to improve relations and secure aid for the war against England, with Cathal marrying off his daughter, Mary, to the current King of France, Phillip II, to cement the alliance.

He also sent a diplomat to the Papal State, with the hopes of garnering favour from the Papacy to grant Cathal's plans legitimacy later on.

His hopes were that when France or Scotland sent a request for an alliance, his potential newfound allies could help drive back the English long enough for him to unite the Irish Kingdoms, and truly establish Irish Independence.

With both tasks done, Cathal split his army into two groups; one he would lead to take Connacht, the other led by one of his trusted generals to conquer Leinster.

Upon declaring war on Leinster and Connacht though, Leinster had unexpectedly allied itself with the Connacht, despite the two sides having a history of hostile rivalry.

Where most would see it as trouble, Cathal saw an opportunity; if he could simultaneously defeat the armies of both kingdoms in one fell swoop, he could immediately siege both kingdoms and conquer them in short order, hopefully buying time for a favourable response from Scotland and France.

Leading his armies to battle in the middle of February, his army had proved its valour and might, as the men of Tyrone managed to defeat the armies of Connacht and Leinster at the Battle of Connacht, leaving their lands vulnerable to siege.

Just as he began sieging said provinces, an Italian engineer from the Republic of Venice presented himself before King Cathal, promising him knowledge on shortening sieges if he were to employ his service.

Whilst his visit was unexpected, King Cathal nevertheless accepted his service, and the engineer's expertise proved vital in Tyrone's eventual annexation of Leinster and Connacht into his growing Kingdom.

His fortunes would soon be tested, however, when the Scottish Navy betrayed King Cathal by attacking his Navy just off the coast of Ulster. Though the battle ended in a stalemate, the war would soon prove to be hard won, as Irish blood stained the seas of the Britannian Isles.

Hope soon came to Cathal, though, when France sent an official request for an alliance with him; this he gladly accepted, and together, the forces of France and Tyrone drove back the Scottish Navy and deterred the English navy from interferring with Cathal's unification war.

The sieges still lasted all the way until September, but with the Italian engineer's expertise, the Castles of Leinster and Connacht were taken with few casualties, completing the first step to Irish unification.

Soon, another problem presented itself before Cathal; Scotland still believed it could cling to the dying friendship between the Irish and Scottish, when they sent a letter asking for an alliance between his Kingdom and Scotland.

Though he disliked the betrayal the Scottish had shown him, and worried about the reaction of his people should he agree to it, he eventually accepted, though he explicitly warned the King of Scotland that should such a thing happen again, the Highlands would burn in the fires of retribution.

Having settled that, he began to again grow used to the reign of a peacetime king, and sent his army to Ulster to heal in preperation for the future wars to cone, and ordered his navy to be strengthened by another three barques and three transport cogs to sharpen his navy's edge.

The province west of Ulster still remained under English control, while the Kingdom of Munster southwest was not Cathal's ally or enemy as of yet, but given the choice between antagonising the English over his fellow Irishmen, he decided to promote relations with Munster instead, sending his second daughter to marry the crown prince of Munster.

This was the story of King Cathal, of how he tried to unite all Irishmen under his banner and drive back the English, and eventually lay the groundwork for the rise of the Kingdom of Ireland.


	2. Chapter 2

In the months to follow, Tyrone's army and navy licked their wounds in grim anticipation, for though they scored a great victory against two rival Irish Kingdoms and the traitorous Scottish navy, they paid a heavy price(the Navy paying a heavier one) and even with an alliance with France, there was no guarantee England or traitorous Scotland would seize the chance to pounce on the beleaguered growing Irish Kingdom whilst they had the chance, and King Cathal knew it.

Using this period of peace as an opportunity, he ordered the army to be strengthened by another five regiments of one thousand men each, and for another three barques and two transports to be added to his navy, uncaring about the financial costs even as his treasury's funds were stretched to the limit. He also sent a diplomat to Munster, with the request of peaceful annexation of the small province under his banner to unite against the English.

To his pleasant surprise, the King of Munster readily accepted; with his wife unable to procure an heir, Munster's King decided it better to entrust rule of his province to the O'neil Dynasty.

Soon afterward, his diplomat returned from the Papal State, with great news; the Pope had granted Cathal's plans for a united Ireland legitimacy, allowing the Irish King to carry out his plans without risk of backlash.

With nearly the whole of Ireland secure, the blessing of the Pope, and his renewed forces ready to strike, he and his advisors formulated a plan on how to best take the English by surprise, and secure an overall victory against the Wancester Dynasty. Before this, he had sent a request to France beforehand to ask for their aid in the coming war against the English. To his disappointment, France declined, the reason being that the Irish were more than capable of taking care of this matter themselves.

Unable to count on France's aid, Cathal elected to go against the English alone. He also ensured that a sizeable portion of his navy and ground forces were stationed at home, in preparation for the likely scenario Scotland were to betray them once again.

Later at night, his forces stealthily crossed the river under the cover of darkness, and bypassing the English navy at the Irish Sea by taking a detour, they made landfall at the western coast of England. There, they made a daring surprise attack on the English capital of London, where King Henry III resided.

The English defenders were completely taken by surprise; lacking any semblance of order, the battle of London became a complete rout for the English, and King Henry III was unable to escape capture at the hands of the Irish army. By daybreak, the remaining Irish forces at Ireland conquered the Irish province under English control, and King Henry III, along with his family and relatives, were ungracefully deposed from their position as the Royal Family of England.

Without a legitimate heir to take the English throne, England was forced to submit to its rightful conqueror.

Then, on 20th February 1461, Cathal's suspicions came true; Scotland betrayed them once again, as the Scottish Navy engaged the Irish Navy at the Irish Sea. Both sides suffered heavy casualties, but miraculously, the Irish Navy, beleaguered as it was, emerged victorious.

Infuriated at Scotland's second betrayal, Cathal gave an order for his forces to converge on the Scottish Highlands. At that moment, France decided to intervene, and entered the war as an ally of Ireland.

Aghast at the alliance between Cathal's forces and the French, the Scottish were unable to withstand the combined assault of the alliance for long. By the end of August, the entirety of the Scottish Highlands was completely annexed by Ireland, placing the whole of Britannia under Irish control.

With this triumph, King Cathal proudly declared that the Kingdom of Ireland would never falter under the harsh duress of its enemies, so long as its people remained united and determined.

Yet even after the conclusion of the English-Scottish-Irish war, Cathal knew there was much to be done; strengthening of the army and navy, rebuilding of infrastructure, and the integrating of the newly-conquered lands under the Irish banner.

With his finances at rock bottom, Cathal willingly took loans from the banks to fufill these tasks in order to rebuild the damage the war wrought on Britannia, and spent the rest of his reign overseeing the reconstruction efforts.

At the end of his life, on the 30th June 1491, after fifty-four years of blessed life, King Cathal, Unifier of Ireland and Conqueror of Britannia, passed peacefully in his sleep. His son, Eoghan, took the throne, and would soon imprint his name in the annals of history.


	3. Chapter 3

When King Eoghan I ascended to the throne, he had inherited a kingdom heavily in debt, thanks in no small part to the costlybattles fought by the Irish between the English and Scottish, leaving him with very little freedom in spending his finances.

Yet he was also a man of great ambition, claiming that he was sent a vision by God himself, telling him that the Irish were destined for greatness, destined to establish and rule an 'empire upon which the sun never set'. With a heavy debt to settle though, his ambition would have to wait.

Throughout the first year of his reign in 1491, he sent diplomats to the nearby Kingdoms of France, Spain and Portugal, and to Norway and Denmark, to obtain favourable trading terms for Irish merchants, and gain an inroad into the lucrative European markets at that time, as a great war was being fought between two alliances of European nations: the Holy Roman Empire's member states, and the Latin Alliance between France and Spain; he was forced to turn down France's request for aid due to his financial predictament, and the lack of soldiers and sailors to cover the entirety of Britain.

Though his kingdom's debts were being paid, money was trickling very slowly into his treasury, giving Eoghan I no small amounts of headaches.

In 1492, however, the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, stumbled upon the New World, and brought back the news that there was a paradise to be explored. This catalysed a wave of colonists sailing from their homes in Europe to explore this brave new world, even as Europe itself was gripped in near-endless wars.

Eoghan I, desperate to alieviate his kingdom's financial debt, tasked an Irishman named Cathal Cunningham, to stake a claim on this new world, and establish the first overseas Irish Dominion.

The expedition landed in the southeastern part of the northern continent, what would be known as Hudson Bay, on 21st March, and proceeded to establish the colony of Nova Hibernia, in honour of their homeland.

Colonisation was progressing with relatively little trouble, but in December, later that year, the colonists were caught unprepared by the terrible winter that made their winter season pale in comparison; over fifty out of the sixty-four colonists that first arrived died of the harsh winter. Only gritty determination kept the last few alive.

Nearby, the native Iroquois tribe had taken pity on the Irish colonists, and they began to teach them the ways of survival in the new world. One of them was the trapping of the local beavers, and using their fur to craft clothing capable of warding off the cold.

Astonished with the quality of the beavers's fur, a sample of it was sent back to Britannia, along with some of the dark wood harvested from the forests.

Almost immediately after King Eoghan I approved of their quality, it was sold as a valued product by Irish merchants all across their home country and Western Europe, bringing in much needed revenue into the Irish treasury, allowing Eoghan I to fully repay all his Kingdom's debts.

With his Kingdom's debts repaid and a steady surplus of ducats filling the Irish treasury, Eoghan I decided to bring his dream to fruition; he immeidately sent a diplomat to the Papal States, with a request for Pope Gregory XIII to grant his plans for empire legitimacy.

Though it took at least a few days for a decision to be made, Pope Gregory XIII granted his blessing, much to Eoghan I's elation. With political clout gained from the Papal States, Eoghan I declared on 28th May 1498, the creation of the Irish Empire, and crowned himself Emperor.

This was deemed heretical and illegitimate by some of the Irish nobility, who immeidately declared a rebellion in parts of England and Scotland.

Eoghan I did not hesitate to personally lead his troops into battle against the rebel nobles, and through his tactical brilliance and decisive leadership, he had come to be called Eoghan the Great, a title he wore with pride.

For two years peace reigned in his growing Empire, the Dominion of Nova Hibernia experiencing great economic growth thanks to its timber and fur-trapping industries and ongoing trade with the local tribes.

In 1500, the Renaissance began to spread outwards from the Italian peninsula, and took much of Western Europe by storm. With the Renaissance came the spread of a sepratist Chistrian movement known as Protestanism, which quickly gained many converts among both the nobility and pesantry.

With the Papacy viewing the Protestant movement as a threat to their power, they immediately outlawed Protestant worship throughout Western Europe, and sent Inquisitors on alert for any trace of Protestant priests and converts.

While Eoghan I was not Protestant and remained Catholic, he became increasingly sympathetic to the Protestants who were becoming victims to the Papacy's attempts at subverting their movement. He henceforth declared that the Irish Church would no longer follow the Papacy's doctrine, and placed his support for the Protestant movement.

This elicited great outcry from the Papacy, who immediately excommunicated Emperor Eoghan I and denounced the Irish Empire.

Almost immediately afterward, the Pope called for a crusade against the Irish Empire, hoping to quash the Protestant's support in Britannia.

To quell any thought of it, however, the Holy Roman Empire had chosen that moment to invade France and Spain, with the Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania allying themselves with the Holy Romans. To add further insult to injury, the Kingdom of Hungary was occupied in a war with the Ottoman Empire, and the Crowns of Denmark, Norway and Sweden had become converts to the Protestant religion, so they saw no reason to take part.

Left with no political allies in Western Europe, the Papacy was forced to deploy its troops in a long detour around Spain and France by the Mediterranean Sea and the Bay of Biscay, before finally reaching the English channel, where the Papal Navy was immediately waylaid by the Irish Navy just off the southern coast of England.

The crusade against the Irish Empire ended in a disaster, and this forced the Papacy to grudgingly let the issue go as it licked its wounds.

Emboldened by the victory against the Papacy, he issued a decree ordering ecclesiarchal reforms in the Irish Church to increase its tolerance towards other religions and cultures, cementing its seperation from the Papacy.

Soon afterwards, on 12th January 1504, Eoghan I passed away after thirty-three years of blessed life, his reign ended early by illness.

With his death, his only daughter Aednat was poised to take the Irish throne, and was officially coronated Empress on 13th January 1504.


End file.
